


Charmides

by WhiskeyVoice



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, philosophy nerd alert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 14:58:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6289018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiskeyVoice/pseuds/WhiskeyVoice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla and Danny argue over the merits of Plato, and Danny dares to claim that Carmilla isn't charming. Naturally, Carmilla drags Laura into a philosophical dialogue on whether a purely hypothetical girl likes Carmilla because she is attractive or is charming. This is all purely hypothetical. Totally. She promises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Charmides

**Author's Note:**

> once the idea of a Socratic dialogue between Carmilla and Laura arrived in my brain, it refused to leave, so it is now yours too. also the fact that Carmilla broods over all this philosophy and yet never really discusses it: a major mystery 
> 
> <3 WhiskeyVoice

Carmilla should have known her time for reflection wouldn’t have lasted. Not that she had focused much on the text anyway, despite her best intentions. Her thoughts had long ago drifted from Charmides to Laura, from temperance to temptation.

Laura, with her unfailing idealism and naïve eagerness, had managed to uncover parts of Carmilla that were thought to be long forgotten. The soft smile that appears between scowls. The sarcasm that is used as much to protect as to soothe. The hope for something better that was buried under years of naught. Laura found the wood, and let Carmilla build her own hearth. Laura, with her flickering eyes, the way they scanned Carmilla’s face as though unearthing a secret, provided the spark.

The looks had gotten searching enough that Carmilla learned to recognize Laura’s eyes on her, and once she paid attention, she found that they were on her a lot. Like, almost all the time. When she was oh so stealthily stealing Laura’s hot chocolate. When she drifted through the door to grab something and leave again. When she was pretending to sleep as Laura woke up. When she was staring at a book and really thinking about how Laura managed to weave into her thoughts again.

Like now, book on her chest, eyes on the ceiling, counting the footsteps of the ginger giant. She had two seconds to prepare her disaffected face. Couldn’t have Laura knowing how her smile has carved Laura a home in Carmilla’s heart. Couldn’t have herself hoping that maybe that staring means more than standard journalistic curiosity.

Self-restraint, Carmilla reminded herself, is essential to virtue. What she cannot make herself be she can at least pretend to be. People always pick and choose from Plato anyway.

The door opened, voices carrying into the room. “Thanks so much for coming over, Danny.”

“Yeah, of course.” Without looking up, Carmilla knew that Danny’s face had her usual mix between concerned protector and loyal friend, and she couldn’t stand it. She snuggled further into the yellow pillow and took a deep breath. For strength or similar such bullshit. She loudly turned the page, pretending she read Critias’ interruption.

Laura looked over at Carmilla, who had somehow yet again managed to steal her pillow and was reading on the bed. Something tugged at her when she saw the blank face. “Hi, Carmilla.”

Carmilla felt Laura’s eyes on her and raised a finger from her book. Self-restraint.

Scowling at Carmilla, Danny spoke to a subdued Laura, “Does she always have to pull that brooding Jane Austen character?”

“Absolutely. It’s in the bad roommate handbook,” Laura replied, gesturing towards Carmilla’s bookshelf. “Right up there next to Cant or whatever.”

“Kant, cupcake.” Carmilla responded, with less malice than intended. This mispronunciation was kind of adorable, but she didn’t need that fondness to seep into her voice and give her away. Especially not when the ginger giant was in the room.

Slightly startled by the lack of snark, Laura shrugged and gestured to the bed, eager to leave the conversation behind. Danny had been overtly curt towards Carmilla as of late, so the faster they could transition from the roommate situation to the lit essay conversation, the sooner Laura can stop wondering why this room feels so overbearing when Danny is in it.

Laura pulled out her books and grabbed her laptop from her desk, sitting on her bed across the gap from Carmilla, taking a moment to observe the girl constantly on her mind. She had been different lately: gentle, almost tender. Laura couldn’t figure it out, so she watched more intently, but every time she thought she was going to uncover something big, Carmilla shape shifted, left a note on her desk or stole her pillow or ate her cookies.

It wasn’t that Laura was upset or uncomfortable. On the contrary, Carmilla made her feel warm and safe; even if her blood was boiling from Carmilla’s blatant disregard of the chore wheel, she never felt spite or vitriol from their interactions. If anything, there was levity.

There was also, of course, the undeniable fact that her roommate was unbelievably attractive. Like how right now, Carmilla was stretching her shoulders back, which only pushed her breasts up and accented the curve of her back. Laura felt her mouth dry up as Carmilla’s tongue licked her lips, which then parted slightly. Her head turned and she looked right at a staring Laura, eyebrow raised.

Laura gulped. This was not how the afternoon was supposed to go. Time to pretend that her frustration was of a different type. She turned to Danny, who was giving her an odd look. Stuck between an amused Carmilla and confused Danny, Laura tried to smile.

“You know what any good discussion of _The Scarlet Letter_ needs? Hot chocolate!” Laura got off the bed and asked Danny, “Do you want some?”

Danny nodded to the affirmative. “Thanks.”

Carmilla did not add what would be a usual quip. She was too busy staring at the monologue by Charmides and wondering what Laura’s staring meant this time. It didn’t feel like searching as much as… wandering? Which would seem to imply…

Taking advantage of Laura’s distraction to bother Carmilla, Danny turned towards Carmilla and asked, “So Carmilla, do you always have your nose in a book?”

Very well. Carmilla could return to this trivial battle and worry about the grander one later. “Only when it can’t be between a pretty girl’s legs.”

From behind her came a squeak. Carmilla turned around to see Laura recovering from the hot chocolate she had choked on. As she coughed and complained about the hot liquid burning her throat, Carmilla smirked and winked at her. Laura only blushed more, though whether it was due to the embarrassment of burning herself or the topic, Carmilla was unsure, but oh how she liked a flustered Laura.

Turning around, she noticed that Danny still hadn’t pick her jaw off the floor.

“Alas,” Carmilla said, “today there’s just Plato.”

That seemed to have sufficed for a placating comment. Danny scoffed, “If you’re going to bother with philosophy, at least make it something interesting like Wittgenstein.”

Carmilla was disaffected and distant again, “All of Western philosophy is either a response to or a restatement of Plato.”

By now Laura was back with two cups of hot chocolate. She handed one to Danny with a warning look. Philosophy conversations with Carmilla did not end well for the initiator. She should know. She once had tried to ask why everyone got so into Foucault all of a sudden and could not get Carmilla to stop glaring at her until she sat through a thirty minute lecture on the importance of biopolitic and the panoptical or whatever. She actually thought Carmilla was smiling at her at the end of the ordeal. In a way, it had been nice.

Regardless, all of Laura’s gesticulating could not keep Danny from responding, “You can’t honestly believe that. The Socratic method is bogus.”

Carmilla smiled. “Ah, suddenly an explanation for how you’re unable to make a single logical deduction.”

Danny snapped back, “I have no idea why Elsie hung out with you.”

Laura sighed and put aside her books. They were going to get nowhere at this rate. She was going to have to sit out the tense room until Danny lost sufficiently, and then she could pretend to return to a normal conversation with her over-protective TA while ignoring her intense attraction to her sulking roommate a meter away. A typical afternoon in her dorm room.

Carmilla shrugged from the bed. “I’m charming.”

“No way.” Danny let out a forced guffaw. “Absolutely not.”

Carmilla quickly glanced away from her verbal sparring partner to Laura, still sitting across the room from her, head down near the mug nestled in her hands, already distant from the battle. Something made her want to reach out the girl and pull her into the fray. To bring her back to the world of the flustered and livid. To spark _her_ for a change. Maybe this something wanted a promise. Maybe it was looking for a smile. Maybe it was hope.

Carmilla looked right at Laura and asked, “Cupcake, am I charming?”

Laura suddenly shot upright, slightly panicked. “Uh, what?”

“Xena here doesn’t think I’m charming.” Danny tried to confirm the claim, but Carmilla talked over her, “But I’ve seen sufficient evidence to the contrary.”

Laura still wasn’t sure what Carmilla was up to, but she was giving her that soft smile, the one where her eyes got bright, maybe even mischievous and childlike. She was certainly up to something, and Laura found herself wanting to tumble into this warmth. As always, she was irresistible. Laura said, “What kind of evidence?”

Carmilla pulled herself up and looked right at Laura. Screw self-restraint. “Let’s say there’s this hypothetical girl, really pretty, and I think she might be interested because I catch her looking at me all the time.”

Danny snorts. “Yeah, right. Probably in fear.”

Carmilla didn’t even look over at the interruption, keeping her eyes fixed on Laura, who was smiling now. She hadn’t broke eye contact yet, and Carmilla felt that something tug harder.

“As Socrates would say, let’s consider the topic broadly.” Carmilla directed her framing and eye roll to Danny and then turned to her true target, “Alright cupcake, why do people ‘hang out’ with someone?” She put finger quotes around Danny’s term.

Laura paused and then began to play along, “Because, I guess, they feel some sort of connection or draw to them, as frustrating or unknown as it is, they want to explore it, want to grasp it, to figure out what it could be… or, I guess, because they’re pretty.”

Danny had quieted down, and she and Carmilla both looked at Laura, who was now blushing and paying extra attention to her hot chocolate.

Carmilla continued with a raised eyebrow. “So because of their appearance or their personality. Extrinsic or intrinsic.”

Laura nodded, but felt like it was so much more than that. It wasn’t that Carmilla was just pretty or sharp or—

“So this girl would hang out with me either because she was attracted or feel a connection with my interior or my exterior or as most often happens maybe just my posterior.”

Laura flushed. Yes, that was it. Carmilla could curve her words as well as her body. She had as potent a wit as her smolder. Carmilla wasn’t an _or_ girl: she was an _and._

Danny responded first, “Or she’s delusional.”

“No one asked you, Xena.” Carmilla retorted automatically, still focused on the playing of emotions on Laura’s face. She had gone somewhere.

“Wasn’t Socrates nice to his interlocutors?”

Carmilla glared at Danny, interrupting her thoughts yet again. “Oh wow you know a fancy word. Now use it properly: I’m not talking to you, am I?”

“Well, there you were.” Danny smirked.

Carmilla rolled her eyes and turned back to Laura, who was looking at her again. “Anyway, from your perspective, creampuff, would this girl be more likely to spend time with me because of my appearance or my personality?”

Laura took a breath. Carmilla was asking the wrong question. A person couldn’t choose: the two aspects were inexplicably tied. They played off each other like two instrumental sections in a band. There was always more to her, more bends in the river. She was an infinite, Hegel’s negation and negation of the negation and maybe she remembered more of that Foucault introduction than she thought. Maybe it was because the words were in her voice or coming from her lips.

Danny was staring, and Laura realized they required a response. “Well, you’re certainly not very nice.”

“You’re saying I’m attractive, then?” Carmilla raised an eyebrow.

“That’s not what she said,” Danny cut in.

“This is not your dialogue.” Carmilla turned back to Laura. “For now, let’s consider my personality. I’m not ‘very nice.’ Are there other aspects of personality that might make it desirable?”

Laura thought through Carmilla’s traits out loud, “Someone could be funny or loyal or smart or charming.” She looked over to see Danny giving her a tender smile and tried to smile back without feeling guilty. She failed and then looked at Carmilla, questioning yet sure.

Curtly, Carmilla continued, “And do I possess any of those characteristics?”

Once again, Danny cut in, “Of course not.”

That was it. Laura sent an apologetic look towards Carmilla and then turned to Danny, “Danny, we were going to talk about Hawthorne _and_ Thoreau, right?”

Pulled away from the presumed fight at hand, Danny seemed startled, “Yeah, why?”

Laura faked a pained expression. “I just realized I totally forgot my collection of Thoreau in the lecture hall. Would you mind grabbing your extra copy?”

Danny grabbed her bag and realized that she did not, in fact, have her extra copy, only her own with annotations. She would never forgive herself if she taught with her annotated copy. “Yeah, okay, I’ll be right back.”

As Danny got up and sprinted down the room, Laura smiled and turned back to a shocked Carmilla. “What were you saying about your personality?” The room already felt lighter.

Carmilla looked at Laura, confused and now nervous. Laura was looking at her in a way that felt different from the searching and wandering. She looked confidently. She looked sure. Carmilla found herself stumbling, “Uh, well, I was going to argue that no trait other than charming is sufficient to explain wanting to hang out with me.”

“Really?” Laura smiled at Carmilla. “I think you’re selling yourself short.”

“Good thing you don’t do that: you’re so tiny that you’d have to sell yourself into non-existence.” Carmilla snarked back. Something was different now, but she couldn’t place it.

“Hey! I’m only a few inches shorter than you.” Laura’s eyes were twinkling, and Carmilla realized that she wasn’t pretending right now, that there was no manufactured distance, that she was blazing.

“So, back to this hypothetical girl,” Carmilla said, sliding to the edge of her bed.

“The one that stares at you a lot.” Laura titled her head and gave a side smile, holding back a large grin.

“Yeah. That one.”

“Who you think is pretty.”

“Yes,” Carmilla continued. “If she wants to spend time with me, she must either find me attractive or think I’m charming.”

“Or both.”

Oh.

Or both. Inclusive or. _And_.

Laura felt the boldness take over her feet. She got off the bed and walked towards a shocked Carmilla, a speechless and dazed and beautiful Carmilla. Hope roared in their mouths as Laura leaned down just slightly and, once her face was just a few inches from Carmilla’s, said, “Yes, definitely both.”

Carmilla wasn’t sure who closed the gap or who pulled whom or when their hands had moved from their sides, but now there were tongues and hands in hair and gasps and _this heat_ —

Footsteps. Loud and fast. Carmilla disentangled herself to see Laura all loopy and flushed, bold and beautiful. Laura let her hand slip down Carmilla’s face as she took the two steps back to her bed. Carmilla whispered, “You’re both, too, you know.”

Bright, crinkly eyes found Carmilla’s as the door flew open. Danny has a book in her hand, and both Laura and Carmilla held on to the newfound warmth in theirs.

“Can we get back to literature now? Or are you,” a spiteful look at a now neutral Carmilla, “still trying to be Socrates?”

Laura diffused. “Let’s talk Hawthorne.” She patted the seat next to her on the bed, while quickly looking up and catching Carmilla’s smirk. Carmilla repositioned herself on her bed, laying on her back, holding the book in the air above her. She licked her lips and glanced back at Laura, who raised her eyebrows.

“And Thoreau.” Danny added, watching Laura fidget slightly with her Tardis mug. “You look happy. You can’t tell me you actually enjoyed the Socratic method.”

Laura shrugged and tried to keep the grin off her face. She failed. “It’s not so bad.” She paused and then added with a grin, “It can be quite illuminating.”

Carmilla quickly winked at Laura before opening up the _Charmides_ again. In conversations of love, Plato had yet to disappoint.


End file.
